Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games [Paperback]

László Polgár (Author), Bruce Pandolfini (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 13, 2013

The most complete collection of chess problems ever published, including 5,334 instructional situations, presented by the world's leading chess teacher

Chess analyzes more than 5,000 unique instructional situations, many taken from real matches, including 306 problems for checkmate in one move, 3,412 mates in two moves, 744 mates in three moves, 600 miniature games, 144 simple endgames, and 128 tournament game combinations. Chapters are organized by problem type. Each problem, combination, and game is keyed to an easy-to-follow solution at the back of the book, so readers can learn as they go. More than 6,000 illustrations make it easy to see the possibilities any position may hold. The book also includes the basic rules of the game and an international bibliography.

Chess is the ultimate book on winning the game. 

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bruce Pandolfini is perhaps the most experienced chess teacher in North America. He is the author of eighteen instructional chess books, and was portrayed by Ben Kingsley in the film Searching for Bobby Fischer.

László Polgár is a Hungarian chess teacher whose writing and strategies are respected and known worldwide. He holds the title of master coach and coached his daughters, Susan, Judit, and Sophia, to several world championships and 11 Olympic gold medals. They host the annual EU Polgár Chess Festival in Budapest.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1104 pages
• Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers (August 13, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579125549
• ISBN-13: 978-1579125547
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 2.4 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #485,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

177 of 186 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars More Chess Puzzles than any other book I have ever seen! September 11, 2006

A Kid's Review

Format:Paperback

The word is WOW! Gigantic collection of chess puzzles. So many I have only just gotten started after a month!!! Question is which ones are going to help me improve my results in actual play. There are so many, and so many don't seem to be from real games and are filler. [...] But you get a lot of problems in this book and if you want everything probably ever made into a problem this is the book!

48 of 50 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great piece cooperation manual! April 30, 2006

By Steven K. Davis

Format:Paperback

I am a scholastic chess coach, teaching kids from how the pieces move all the way up to about 1500-rated. I now require every student to have his or her own copy of this book! This school year, my students (cumulatively) completed more than 5000 of these puzzles, some more than 500 individually.

Polgar doesn't have a lot of text here to read, just tons of puzzles, most of which are game-likely situations. One of the hardest things to teach students is often board vision and cooperation of pieces into attacks and mating attacks. Through repetition, this book helps players learn the patterns that will present them opportunities in their tournament games. My players that are serious about their improvement have, without exception, found that this book has bumped their ratings at least 200 points (some 400 points!) in less than a year!

As a coach, I have found that offering internal club recognition for completing puzzles such as these also improved club-wide interest. Additionally, many of the puzzles you find elsewhere, whether in a book or on-line, will have escape possibilities from the stated "mate-in-two" or other move numbers. Of the 5334 puzzles in this book, my students and I have only found ONE with such a problem!

I would not hesitate to give this book the highest possible review rating as a teaching manual - you don't need to re-write the book when Lazlo has already done it for you

94 of 105 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars More Problems caused by too many Problems! December 20, 2006

A Kid's Review

Format:Paperback

This has got to have more chess problems than any other single chess book ever written. If you want want is lots and lots then this book cannot be beat.

But the very fact that this book is so massive creates problems of it's own. A simple question to start with: Do you have almost unlimited time (years and years) to go over about every problem, instructive and not so instructive? Or are you more interested in having well selected problems that are instructive and focus on the most common patterns you are going to come across in actual play?

This book, is loaded with what I call a lot of "filler" problems and a lot of material that is quickly tossed in without much thought toward making this book logically progress from one pattern to another. Simple grouping of "general" types of tactics and ideas is not going to make it.

This book deserves some credit just for being jamm packed. But I would rather suggest tactics/problem books with a more well thought out direction. For a beginner or just beyond that level Bruce Pandolfini's, "Beginning Chess: Over 300 Elementary Problems" and for an intermediate player, Emms "Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book" have condensed plenty of problems into what is more practical to learn.